


Five Winters

by crowsnest



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: (Gotham is complicated), (or attempts at it), Anxiety, Bad Parenting, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Gotham Rogues - Freeform, OCD, PTSD, Realistic mental illness, References to the occult, Reformed Riddler, eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-19 00:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1448743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowsnest/pseuds/crowsnest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are five winters that Edward Nygma's been a father. A lot can change, over the years-- does family court lead to family man? If so, the path is as indirect as possible; Eddie Nygma doesn't ever go at anything in direct and straightforward manner and fatherhood is no exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Winters

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 2013 Riddler Reverse Big Bang located here: http://riddlerrbb.livejournal.com/

December, 23rd, 1989.

Age 19

Eddie was in county holding when the clerk came in, wearing sensible shoes with sturdy kitten heels and a pencil skirt that didn't disguise thick thighs. It started out the usual way; they said his name, he glanced over, they repeated it, he said that's me, and they slid the papers through the bars. He'd done this a few time now; you debut as the Riddler and become a nemesis of Batman, and suddenly everybody wants to hand you things.

He smiled at her through the bars – not quite sure why this one was waiting for him to open them. Most of them didn't. Hand the papers over, record the incident, and walk off. He flashed her another, sardonic smile, wondering what her game was. Then he dropped his eyes to the summons, and he stopped wondering.

“Are these – is this about child support? Paternity?”

The clerk just cocked her hips and quirked her lips.

“Do the crime, pay the fine – that's how it goes, right?” she replied, not answering his question but raising more for him. “I would have paid good money for a camera right now. The look on your face. It's priceless.”

“Go to hell,” he snapped, and reread them. “Who is Caitlin O'Neal?”

“You'd know better than me. Guess you'll find out in court.”

The Family Services court got his transfer to Arkham delayed; that he couldn't complain about – any time spent out of that box was good time. Sure, the longer he was in county lock up the worse things could go – eventually some young punk decided to teach one of the 'masked freaks' a lesson; his shiv didn't hit anything vital in Eddie – but the return trip it made into his attacker wasn't nearly so kind. Good thing he had two kidneys, if you asked Eddie. After that, they moved him to solitary lock up, no time out of the cell beyond an hour of gym time, alone, watched.

Still better than Arkham. He'd gotten out of there through no small effort, and he didn't want to go back. This was a good delay. When he couldn't get word to the girls, though, he knew it might be a while waiting for the next big spring.

The court date came around two days before Christmas; he'd be transferred up after the holidays, they told him. His lawyer suggested they file a new appeal after, on the grounds of this 'news' affecting his mental state. Eddie couldn't bring himself to care. In the courtroom, all he could do was look at Caitlin.

He remembered her now; he met her in early March as an easy fling after the Lighthouse Club job. Short, strawberry blonde, okay in the sack but nothing outstanding. She'd been going by Cat, then; a couple of years older than him, but no wiser in the way of love. Or one night stands, he supposed. Drunken sex between heists hadn't been the best life choice either of them could have made.

He wondered if she came looking for him, then gave up when she couldn't find him. Nobody'd said anything; Echo and Query weren't exactly the best at – but in the end, it didn't matter. Irish Catholic wouldn't have said yes to an abortion, anyway, and that's exactly what he would have suggested.

Eddie nearly earned a contempt charge when he corrected the bailiff (Nygma was not an alias; he had his name legally changed, thank you) but otherwise remained silent for the proceedings unless he had to speak, content to let his lawyer handle the legal rigmarole. Yes, the paternity test demand had been met, yes, they'd need to discuss further delay to his trip to Arkham, no, he was not seeking custodial rights or challenging Miss O'Neal's sole custody claim. Mr. Nygma would be glad to sign over all parental rights to Miss O'Neal.

Eddie knew what he was. A father wasn't it.

The rest was just dotting i's and crossing t's. Caitlin didn't look at him, not even when discussing her requests for both child support and for sole custody. A woman sat in the courtroom behind them holding a child; probably the baby in question. He didn't ask. He tried not to care.

Then it was back to holding and waiting for his trip down to county. Now, she came to him. They'd cleaned her up for this, just to be safe. Make up to a minimum, sensible blouse, long dress, no leg showing. She was still retaining weight from her pregnancy. The padding made her more matronly, less 'after party fuck'. The baby was with her now, wrapped and against her shoulder, small and so out of place across from him.

“If this is some emotional ploy,” he warned her as congenially as he could manage, “it's not going to work.”

“It isn't. I – I thought long and hard about this. I don't want her near you, or your life.”

“In that we're agreed. She's nothing but a liability to me.” He was one to her, if he was honest with himself.

Cat's lips pressed into a thin line, and she chose her next words very carefully, testing him: “She's your daughter. You should know her. And her, you. But not until you’re either out of this-- or you're dead in a ditch from one of your own schemes. I won't have my baby dragged into this mess of costumes and capes.”

“There is no 'out',” he told her. There was no theatrics, no flair. Just facts. “I'm the Riddler. You don't just quit. This is a lifetime gig, sweetheart. One semi-enjoyable fuck didn't change that. Nobody gives up a life of crime for a lay. Nobody good at it, anyway.”

“If you were good at it, would you be sitting in holding right now?” Cat's lips were white now, and she trembled with rage. Good. He wanted her anger, even if he had to bite his tongue on a response.

When the insult didn't get a reaction, she shifted the babe in her arms. She presented her daughter, their daughter, without any fear. The baby had a little scrunched up face with a snub nose, hair coming in warm and red. She took after her mother, it seemed; her eyes were still the gray-blue of innocent infants, but that could change in time. She was awake, looking at Eddie with no comprehension at all.

“You want to be her father, you know what you've got to do. You don't, just keep doing what you're doing, asshole.”

Eddie rolled his eyes; he backed away from the bars, then, and began to hum Papa Don't Preach. Cat huffed, swore at him, and turned away. He didn't try and stop her. After all, he was giving her the best Christmas gift he could give his daughter: his absence from her life.

 

 

December 26th, 1994

Age: 24

 

 

If politics made strange bedfellows, Eddie was certain crime was worse. He had straw in his clothes, his hair, scratching up against unpleasant places and generally making everything itch. It wasn't any fun, and his 'partner' wasn't making anything more bearable.

Dr. Jonathan Crane, alias Scarecrow, stood tall and thin at six-foot-four and perhaps one seventy at best. Compared to him, Eddie seemed like a small man at a drearily average five-foot-ten. They'd been cell mates, accused of being conspirators, could pass as friends if you didn't really know either man, and right this moment were holed up in a warehouse on the south side of town not far from the docks. The heat was on and Calendar Man had blown a perfectly good holiday with another themed scheme. Now Gotham was crawling with cops that were looking for anybody dumb enough to poke their heads out of their rat holes.

Eddie wasn't dumb. Neither was Jon. What they were, however, was sick of looking at each other. Jon’s plan for escape had left them smuggled across town in the back of a truck full of unloaded crates filled with packing straw for the cheap imports from some overseas location that neither cared to think about. Jon didn’t mind the straw. Eddie certainly did.

“I hope you have a plan,” Jon muttered.

“What, you don't?”

“Not what I meant, Nygma.”

Eddie lapsed into silence, as he picked more of the dry grass out of his collar. He had a plan, but it didn’t include helping Jon much longer. Gotham’s rogue gallery were not known for their cooperation – he knew Jon would abandon him as soon as he had the itch to feed his personal beast, that craving for fear that kept him on the other side of the heavy steel doors in Arkham Asylum.

“Look, I’ll be out of your hair soon as soon as the girls come get me,” Eddie told him in what he hoped was a conciliatory tone. “Then you can go do whatever it is you’re going to do, and I can do the same.”

“I’ve never understood your preference for working with those—slatterns.”

“And I don’t particularly understand why you wear burlap,” Eddie replied, conciliatory tone evaporating with irritation. “They’re helpful, they’re loyal, and they adore me. What’s not to like about this set up?” The regular threesomes were an added bonus, but he didn’t think Jon would understand. Not after he’d invoked an archaic word for ‘whore’ to describe them.

“You’ve built yourself quite the criminal family,” Jon said, smooth voice setting Eddie’s skin to prickling. Maybe Jon wasn’t going to wait for his fear fix. “I find that very strange for a man that’s abandoned his natural offspring.”

This was the last thing that Eddie wanted to discuss with any of his fellow rogues. When Harvey Dent’s inability to give his wife a child had created rumors of impotence, there'd been a few laughs at the other rogue's expense... up until he took a table leg to somebody's throat. Eddie's virility and child-siring prowess had been a less fertile field for humor, but the Joker could spin anything into a gag if he tried. Suggesting that Eddie bed Dent's soon to be ex-wife? That had nearly gotten him killed when Two-Face thought the joke had come from the Riddler himself. It had been a pain in the ass ever since. There was no way Jon wasn’t digging for a fear to whet his appetite on, either.

“Apples and oranges, Jon. You know what I prize from my co-conspirators? It’s a most delicate thing—speak and you’ll break it.” A simple riddle; one Jon easily could ferret out. The answer was silence. It was also a subtle way to tell him to shut up.

Jon made a little noise, a tsh of disdain. “Afraid of being a father, Riddler?”

“No. Simply not interested in playing house,” Eddie retorted.

“Meant for greater things, hmm? Or are you simply aware you’d fail miserably at it?”

“Are you trying to pick at my fears while we’re freezing in a pile of straw in a warehouse, during one of the worst winter storms I have ever had the misfortune of seeing with my own eyes? I’d rather be back at Arkham than deal with this!”

“Your company’s hardly a pleasure to bear either!” Jon snapped. “No wonder you punish your child the same way you were! You walked out on her, just like your mother did to you! A snivelling wretch, that’s what you are.”

“Oh, that’s rich from you, Dr. Keeny!”

Despite being tired and cold, Eddie found they had the strength to grapple and snarl at each other; gloved fingers curled into Eddie’s suit coat, even as he grabbed Jon’s cloak and gave it a yank. Shivering, miserable, they scuffled briefly – straw kicked up as fists swung, lunges were made, and invective given. It was juvenile, certainly, but insult given among the rogues could lead to dangerous and deadly consequence. Best to duff it up now before it had a chance to fester into something greater.

It was when Crane caught him in the knee and dropped him among the packing fluff that he saw they weren’t alone. For a brief moment his heart began to hammer; had the Bat found him already? His panic only excited Jon further, eliciting a cackle from the other man—until someone kicked him in the face.

Not the Batman; no, once he rolled into a sitting position he saw it wasn’t a cloak, it was a dark long coat in the shadows. But the short, dark hair belonged to Echo. Query stood not far behind her, gun drawn and trained on Jon.

“Hello, ladies. Impeccable timing as always!” Eddie said as Echo helped him up. She kissed him briefly; her lips were warm on his chilled mouth, invigorating after his brief brawl.

“Sorry it took so long. We’re just about up to our asses in snow. But we got a route back to a safe house planned,” Echo said.

“We taking the Scarecrow?” Query asked. “Or we popping him?

“I’m not afraid of your harlots, Riddler,” Jon said, eyes still on the gun.

“Thankfully, they’re not afraid of you either,” Eddie told him, before he offered him a hand. A peace offering, he let the fight end there. “You need a lift anywhere?”

“I’ll make my own way,” Jon said, ignoring the offered hand and getting up under his own power. He loomed over all of them; it failed to intimidate Query, who kept her gun trained on him.

“Guess we’ll be going, then,” Eddie said, straightening his hat. “Good day, Scarecrow. Girls, let’s be off.”

Echo was quick to drag him off to their getaway car; the white, unmarked van was still running. He ducked into the back without second word, grateful it was warm inside. Query got into the drivers seat, while Echo got in the back with Eddie.

“So, did you have a merry Christmas, girls?”

“Of course, Eddie!” they chorused.

“And everything I asked for is in place?”

“Yeah. Things ran a little late. Our, uh, special delivery got side tracked thanks to Jules’s huge Christmas cock-up,” Echo said as she scrunched her face. “But the usual delivery of unmarked bills for child support for the next year, and a couple of things for Ellie.”

“Yes, yes, very good.” He waved off things; he was an absentee father, but he was no dead beat. He gave his word to provide child support, and he did it. It as the only thing he could do – and it’s not like he was ever hurting for cash. “And now, tell me. Did you acquire the maps I asked for?”

January was coming up fast, and he sure had a riddle for the new year…

 

 

March 2nd, 2001.

Age: 31

 

 

The scent of ash and smoke still clung to his skin as he ran through the streets. His skull had been exorcised of the voice that had been guiding him up until this point. He had been prompted, lead, mastered-- fool! Of course he'd been a patsy. Why did he think he'd be more than that? Why did he think otherwise?

Coughing, Eddie tried to clear his throat of smoke and soot as the building went up in flames a few blocks behind him. Would it kill Batman? He couldn't say. The demon – the demon would do what it needed. It would succeed and rise, or fail. It was out of Eddie's hands now.

With that thought, he looked down to his sooty, dirty gloves. Had he ever been in control? How long had that thing been running the show? From the moment the journal of Jakob Stockman had been in his hands, he'd been-- a puppet.

His energy began to flag; he shrugged out of the black robe, pulled off his mask. There'd be no-one to pick him up from this, no place to go. The city trembled – was that the demon, Barbathos, sealed in youthful Gotham's bones, on the verge of being free? If so, what did that mean? Now that he was alone in his mind, he couldn't even begin to fathom what he would have done with that beast at his fingertips.

The chill in the air – spring not yet here, winter keeping her claws in the city — sapped his strength as he stumbled through the back alleys, down into a slightly better neighbourhood around Stockman Hill.

Recognition seeped in; he knew this place. What was near by? No hideouts, certainly; the neighbourhood was just a little bit too gentrified for that. No allies, either. The homes were nice brownstones, with small fenced off yards often sarcastically nicknamed 'Gorgeous Gotham Gardens'. They were rarely more than patches of grass and occasionally some flowers, and the most green anybody got in the city. They opened to back streets, where the garbage was set out, and little more than mail men, garbage trucks, and kids playing kickball ever saw it. Wasn't too far from what he'd grown up in, actually.

One gate was loose on its lock. When is a door not a door? It was ajar, the perfect place to slip in and hide himself. He needed to get off the street, to be safe. Just in case the bat pursued him. Back against the fence, he dropped down, to sit among the wet grass. All the snow had begun to melt, Gotham's infamous cold rains had replaced them.

Eddie peeled off his gloves, let his fingers drift through the damp. The water clung to his fingers, and her scrubbed his face with it a moment later. It was good to get the grime off.

The house beyond him was dark; there was a sliding glass door there, some earth-tone drapes pulled for privacy, to match the brownstone's dull brick. Beyond it, he could see nothing. No light, no movement. Maybe the chaos hadn't reached this far down, maybe they slept without knowing what he'd failed to do. He could take shelter here for a few minutes, before moving on.

Exhaustion dragged at him, fuzzed his senses. It's why he didn't notice the curtain moving or hear the click of the latch. Shadows, though; he was used to watching those; when the dim light of a slivered moon cast it, he thought it was the bat.

“Alright, alright, I surrender!” he said.

Then he felt the baseball bat smack into his shoulder. He yelped, and startled out of his weariness, looked up.

That was not the bat. That was a prepubescent child, cocking back for another swing. Eddie squawked, scrambled upward, and then howled as she got him in the hip, nearly bowling him over.

“Get out of here!” the child said; still high pitched, childlike – could be a boy or a girl, he wasn't sure. Didn't particularly care, as the kid was making a scene. “Burglar! Thief! Somebody call Batman!”

“I think you're doing a fine enough bat-job there already,” he snarled, reaching out to grab the bat. The strikes hurt-- but those skinny arms didn't get too much leverage. The kid staggered as he pulled-- and then brought her legs up to a donkey kick to the groin.

Eddie whined once, staggering to the side-- they both dropped the bat, this time, and child went running for house, calling “Mom, Mom, I caught a burglar!”

Face down in the grass, shamed, groin afire and now body as bruised as his ego, Eddie realised that this was pretty much where crime was going to lead him every time if he didn't wise up. He needed something bigger, something better. Something that didn't lead him into strange yards to be disrespected by small children and caught by their parents. Something that didn't make him the brains behind something else, something more—powerful than he could be. He didn't want to be the fall guy for other rogues – for demons from other worlds – forever.

He rolled to his knees, groaning as his wobbly legs protested. He staggered to his feet, lurched to the doorway, and only came up short when someone said: “Eddie?”

He glanced back; lights in the house now on, he saw the silhouettes of the woman and child; the girl in pigtails, her baseball bat now gone she was less brave, but she lurked behind her mother all the same. Cat: he recognised her easily. The matronly look wasn't calculated now, it simply just was; ten years of being a single mother had taken it's toll in the lines on her face, the weight on her hips and thighs. She wasn't the tiny little thing that he'd tumbled into bed after the Lighthouse Club heist.

She was the mother of his child, and he'd nearly summoned a demon to Gotham not but a few blocks from her home.

Now, he added stupidity to the shame and humiliation. He'd let himself be led so far around the bend that he hadn't thought about the promise he'd made: to keep as far away from them as possible. Face burning, he pushed past it all, staggered out into the night – picking up speed slowly as pain receded. God, he needed to get away from here.

He needed to go to ground, start over. Let this blow over-- let this be forgotten. He'd go deep, push it down, and try to forget all about this particularly grand failure in a long line of them.

 

January 18Th, 2004

Age: 34

 

 

He couldn't believe they were still in the same neighbourhood after he'd all but fallen into their yard four years ago. It had been an accident - a night he'd rather forget, if he were honest (and he was.) He really should have remembered, when it had mattered. Now, it was easier. Now, he came to the front door, with purpose.

Eddie didn't don green, he didn't wear purple – he came by as plain and joe average as he could be; not hard, really. He was, in the end, the least physically distinct of Gotham's criminal elite – out of costume, he was an average man, with brown hair, green eyes, in decent but not fantastic shape. The drugs, he supposed, would eat away at that, though.

He rang the bell and waited. Not long, though. The door was answered by a girl he could recognise, this time around. A head full of red curls, eyes a muddy hazel: this was Ellen Nygma.

Ellen O'Neal, legally. Ellie to her friends, of which she had many. She was athletic, alright in school, and popular-- though her hobbies researching the Gotham super crime scene had put some of her friends off, the last few years. He'd kept tabs on her from afar, now, to avoid anything like the Barbathos aftermath from ever treading into her life.

“Hello, Ellie. Is your mother in?”

“I don't know. Is she, Riddler?”

Combative already. Eddie didn't have time for this.

“Think we can skip the aliases today. I need to speak to your mother,” he said. “She should be home by now, shouldn't she?”

“Long happy hour shift,” she said, taking up a lean in the doorway. “Thought the rules said you had to call first, make sure she was okay with you being here?”

God, teenagers. Eddie ground his teeth, trying to keep his temper.

“This is important.”

“Is it illegal?” she couldn't hide the gleam in her eyes, and Eddie's heart sank. What did they say about apples and trees?

“Not entirely.”

“But a little bit?” '

“I'm violating the terms of my parole and courting a restraining order. Can I come inside or not?”

“Yeah, okay,” her casual answer was given lie by the quick hop from the door frame. Good, she was curious about him. He wasn't sure what her mother had told her after that encounter in her yard, but apparently the truth of her parentage had been part of the deal.

“Do you have any paper?” he asked, as he shed his coat and let it hang over the back of a kitchen chair. Ellie nodded, and grabbed a pad and pen sitting by the phone. All the requisite numbers; two jobs, fire and police, 911, and the like were next to it. A couple of names; Cat's brother Mike, her parents. He didn't need to ask who “Joe” was; Cat's new long-term boyfriend. He wondered if it'd last as soon as 'the father of my child is the Riddler' came out. She always got dumped after that. It was a wonder she kept telling them. Or maybe these days, Ellie was blowing her own secrets.

“In case your mother doesn't come home before I need to leave,” he said, “she'll need these numbers.”

“They're bank account numbers!” Ellie said, eyes flying wide. “Holy shit how many are you writing down?”

“Enough to keep you settled for a long period of time. I'm going to be out of Gotham for a while, you see, and won't be able to make sure my affairs are in order.” Of course there was also the chance the wild goose chase he was about to embark on would lead him right into the arms of the League of Assassins instead of the Lazarus Pit. But maybe, maybe...

Best not to think about it right now.

“You going to Star City again?” she asked, looking up at him. She really had been following his progress, hadn't she?

“No,” he told her. “Not sure where I'll end up, but it will take time and effort. It's not-- it's not a heist or scheme, Ellen.”

“Then what is it?”'

I don't want to die.

“Complicated.”

Ellen's lips pursed; she had a rosebud mouth, perfect for pouting. Probably worked on the boys at school. Didn't work on Eddie at all.

“Can you get these to her?” he asked.

“I can-- or I can take them myself if you don't tell me where you're going, and spend it all on clothes and shoes.”

“Or you could give it to your mother, so she can pay the rent.” He counted to ten, pinching the bridge of his nose. Were all children so stupid?

“I could give one to mom, and keep the rest,” Ellie said, rocking on her heels, excited at the very prospect of untold amount of cash at her fingertips.

“Are you seriously trying to bargain with me?” Eddie finally snapped. “You're not very good at it. You're not a very clever child, are you?”

Now she flushed with shame and embarrassment; it made her freckles stand out all the more.

“I'm smart enough,” she snapped back. “I'm the Riddler's daughter. I better be smart enough to pull one over on you!”

Eddie felt his brows inch up his forehead, and – briefly, he saw himself there. It was another thing, though, him in reverse. He had told his father how smart he was only to be denied. Now, Ellie was telling him how smart she was, that she was good enough to be his daughter... when they both knew that wasn't true.

“Ellen, how much research on me have you done?” he kept his tone even. “On dear old dad, if I may claim the title, however briefly.”

“A lot,” she replied. She leaned against the kitchen counter now, arms folded over her chest, eyes down. Defences were engaged, and she was ready for a sulk now.

“Do I lie, Ellen? Ever?”

“What? Well--” she paused now and thought. He watched her wrack her brain, on the one subject she dedicated time to effort on. Oh, his daughter wasn't an idiot-- she just wasn't so much a Nygma.

“No,” she finally said. “Not directly.”

“Then I'm going to be as direct as possible: you're not clever enough to pull one over on me. I doubt you get away with much with your mother, either. She was a bright girl. Too smart for the dump I found her in.”

“But not bright enough to tell you to use a damn condom, huh?”

Eddie flinched. Kid had a point.

“Well, maybe there's some potential in you yet,” he allowed. “But the request remains. Can you get this to your mother? If--” If this doesn't work, if the cancer wins, “--I can't get back, I'll make sure a few things come your way.”

“So, what, you're just dumping some cash and walking?” Ellie's expression twisted up, rosebud mouth twisting into an ugly sneer. “You really gotta work on your follow through, Daddy.”

“Look, I'm doing you a favor. I just want to make sure my obligations are taken care of.”  
“Yeah, you know what? Fuck you! If you wanted to do me a favor, why the hell didn't you come and be my father?”

“Your mother didn't want you involved in my life and lifestyle, and I agreed,” he told her, as she began to circle him, flush moving from embarrassed to the apoplectic purple of teenage rage. “Staying away from you and letting you grow up without a criminal in your life was for the best.”

“How the hell do you know what's best, you asshole?” In the grip of rage. “You can't even beat the Batman!”

“Pretty rich from a kid who cried for him when she was scared!”

“Hey, who kicked your ass, old man? I was eleven and you're like, forty!”

“I'm thirty-four!”

“Close enough!”

“Am I interrupting something?”

Cat's voice cut through through the snarling, cool and sharp. Both of them turned and stopped.

“You have better have a damned good reason for being here, Eddie Nygma.” Cat said. “Ellie? Get up to your room.”

“No! He's my father, I--”

“Move your ass right now!”

Ellie clammed up, eyes bright and wide-- and then dashed for the stairs to the second floor. Eddie grabbed his paper and turned around, ready to explain. He got as far as, “Cat, I--” before she turned his head with the flat of her palm. The smack left him stunned briefly, before he stopped and stared.

“The hell do you think you're doing?”

“Taking care of my responsibilities,” he said, and thrust the paper at her. “Accounts. You're going to need them.”

Cat turned them over in her hands, and then looked up at Edward now with confusion. “Where are you going?”

“Away,” he said. “Possibly for good. You can save the celebratory champagne for after I leave, alright?”

Cat's lips stayed in their tight, thin line. She had a lot of lines these days, and few of them had to do with laughter. There were crows feet at the corners of her narrowed eyes. She'd just gotten harder and harder, since he'd seen her last.

“What have you gotten into this time, Eddie?”

“Better to ask what's gotten into me,” he replied.

Her brows went up, and then she tilted her head. “You're-- sick?”

“Big C. In my brain. Got a tumor the size of a peach pit. Getting bigger daily.”

“Shit,” she said, reaching for a chair; her hand closed over his coat, hanging on the back of one of her kitchen chairs. “Don't-- don't tell Ellie.”

“I won't. Just-- this is a few accounts. Move it, save it, invest it. It'll keep you covered, at least until she's eighteen. Enough to start her on college if that's what she wants.” He didn't have to tell her that she'd be the first Nygma – Nashton – to get a college education, if she went.

Cat was silent a moment, sitting there with the papers in hand.

“You'll take care of yourself, in the mean time?” she asked.

“I always do.”

“Alright,” she said. She rose, and said, “You should go. I don't want her to come down here and--”

“I know, I know. I'll – be on my way.”

He didn't have a hat to tip, and it felt strangely wrong. She handed him his coat with as much grace as she could. He paused, looking at her for a moment, before he cracked a rakish grin – he knew it had charmed her once. Now, it was probably just a shadow of what it had once been. Could he have loved her? Learned to love being a family man?

No. Probably not. It ran deeper than just trying; he knew it. The Riddler couldn't have settled, and these days, Eddie felt less and less in control of his life, the Riddler more and more of who he was.

“I've got an answer to chase,” he said. “Take care of her, and yourself.”

“Have been for fifteen years,” Cat said. She tilted her head, imperious and proud. She'd raised his daughter on her own, no help, for fifteen years. He gave a small salute, and headed for the door. Outside, he headed for his nondescript rental car, ready to make his trip to the airport.

The thunk of an opening window brought him up short. The sudden impact of a heavy book nearly took him off his feet. What was it with this child hitting him with things?

“You know what? Go ahead, walk out!” Ellie shouted from her window. “When I show you everything I can be, you'll regret it! You'll come crawling back here to say you're sorry, and I'll show you who's good enough to be a Nygma!”

Her scrapbook – every Riddler news clipping, every photo she could find-- lay open at his feet. Every glorious failure, every ignominious defeat, in black and white. His fingers curled into fists; well, she had a point. How hard could it be to exceed him? What had he done that was truly remarkable?

“Oh, hush-- don't air your dirty laundry for the neighborhood,” he called back, and turned on his heel. He got in his car, put the key in the ignition, and drove away as Ellie howled behind him.

He'd solve the greatest riddle, give her something to properly aspire to: How did one cheat death? Once he had the answer in his hands-- and the brain tumor out of his head – he'd show her... No, he'd show them all:

The Riddler was one of the originals, the Crown Prince of Conundrums, the Prince of Puzzlers.

Someone worthy.

 

 

December 14th, 2009

Age: 39

 

The key to the Iceberg Lounge was between his fingertips. Oh, he'd gotten the call from Ozzie-- secured line, encoded language; I'm fine, the Bat was involved. Keep the key, but I'll hold onto the lounge for now. It meant he hadn't died, the Lounge remained his, and he was still grateful but they were never, ever going to speak of what had passed between them on that cold evening in the lounge.

Eddie couldn't say he wasn't relieved. He didn't know what he'd do with a lounge, or with burying his (only) friend. But the key was a nice thing. A symbol. He kept it in his wallet, after that, and didn't think too deeply on the rest. Ozzie was back to being Ozzie, there was a Christmas party coming up, and there were things to think about now. A date, for one thing, wouldn't go amiss, but his luck with women had been less than fantastic lately and would remain that way. He knew what he was. Datable wasn't really it.

In the days that followed, he thought more about it. He got another case that took him out to Metropolis, caught up with Harley, and came back a lot richer. He got out of his shitty apartment and bought a brownstone in a nice, gated neighborhood and did it with cash in hand. His business was thriving.

As it crept closer to Christmas, he realised that he was alone.

Oh, he saw Mabel at the office, Ozzie at the lounge, and when he had an itch to scratch, he could follow the trail to Pandora's Box, and tease a few first timers or find an experienced partner who'd love to know what made the Riddler tick in bed. His tastes had matured some, since was nineteen and was caught banging lounge lizards in the back room of bars between heists.

It didn't make him any less alone. He'd turn forty in January, and where was he? Sipping scotch between clients emails about which rich person was cheating on them.

Don't screw it up, Ozzie had told him. So far, so good. Sure, Ozzie had fallen off the wagon first – fallen right into the Bat's pocket, no less – but he kept that advice as best as he could. But when he looked back on his life, where was everyone?

Query and Echo had gone their ways together-- they were married now, in Massachusetts. Happy to put their criminal pasts behind them, they kept in touch and sometimes dropped in when they came by to visit family. It was a far cry from their crazy post-heist affairs and schemes. They had a life, now, and Eddie wasn't really a part of it.

His family was scattered; his mother had walked out when he was nine, and he had left his father in the dust at eighteen. He supposed he could find Theodore “Tad” Nashton if he wanted to, but the truth was... he didn't. That was a closed door, and he was content to leave it as such.

Staring into the scotch, though, he thought of others; was Ellen thinking the same thing about him, right now? She'd been part of the Teen Titans a couple of years ago; most of her exploits had taken placewhile he'd been in a coma. She'd vanished into obscurity after Deathstroke's defeat, he knew that much... But he hadn't gone nosing around since. He was putting his life back together, and honestly, he couldn't even say he remembered if they'd ever spoken to each other. Child support had been rendered, he knew that much, but – a relationship with a daughter he'd stayed away from? He could remember only so much, but he knew it was for good reason.

Or was it? He had to second-guess everything he'd done; was it the throes of madness or was it reasonable and logical? And even if it was... hadn't things changed?

He finished his scotch, staring into his keyboard, and then reached out to make a call. Ozzie's private line. He'd pick up, or he wouldn't.

“Eddie!” the old bird laughed into the other line. “Eddie, if you're calling to cancel on the Christmas party, I'm going to be quite cross!” He didn't sound a bit cross at all; in fact, he was warm and welcoming. That meant this new deal after the Bat was working out and repairs were going well.

“Cross enough to refuse me a favor, old man?” Eddie asked

“Perhaps! What's the favor you're looking for?”

“A bit on the personal side. Ellen O'Neal, alias, Engima-- I'd-- well, it's that time of year, family gets on your mind.”

“Yes, that it does. She went to ground after that Boy Band that passes itself off as a super team had a bit of sport at Deathstroke's expense?”

“Yes, you could say that. I was-- ah, in a long nap at the time, and--”

“Say no more, my boy, say no more. Family's important. A good, stabilising thing.”

Eddie tried not to laugh; The Penguin was back to criminality, but yet wanted to see Eddie stay on the straight and narrow. How droll. He was dead wrong about Eddie's family, but Ozzie loved his mother and could not be faulted for his views contrary to Eddie's own experiences.

“Yes,” Eddie told him. “It can be. Sometimes. Anyway, if you could help me out, I'd be grateful.”

“Strange, aren't you the detective on retainer?”

“I am, but...” Eddie dragged it out for emphasis. “You know the legal requirements. I can't just dig in anybody's garbage, after all.”

“So you want me to pay you to find your own daughter?”

“How about I do this one pro bono? For a friend.”

The Penguin laughed, his barking awk awk awk ringing clear over the line. “Very clever, Mr. Nygma!” Ozzie replied; he was clearly pleased by this bit of legal chicanery. “Done and done. Merry Christmas, Eddie. Go find your girl.”

“I knew I could count on you, Oswald.”

“Of course, my boy. Now-- tell me how your evening with Lila went; you did call her, yes?”

“I'll never kiss and tell, Ozzie.”

The Penguin laughed again. Then it was friendly jibes and small talk before they both had better things to do. Eddie poured himself another scotch, and began to dig.

It was no quick thing; she wasn't a complete idiot – she'd gone to ground after Deathstroke's defeat and had apparently learned enough with the Titans on how to cover her tracks. She wasn't the intellectual titan her father was, that much was clear, but she didn't go home. Cat wasn't even in the city any more, he found. She'd married her beau Joe and split after Ellen – Enigma – had left home and followed in her father's footsteps. Rebuilding, he hoped, in a town with less capes and costumes.

It was ten days till Christmas Eve. By day four, he'd had to hit the street, as incognito as possible. No costumes, not even purple shades. Just plain work clothes. He didn't want to spook his quarry, after all.

This was Gotham, though. Nobody was incognito enough – not even an out of costume Edward Nygma. He should have known digging about his own past would draw attention. He just didn't know it'd end up with him dangling by his ankles from a fire escape after a long evening of pounding the pavement for information.

“Could you play a little nicer? Seriously, I just wanted to talk to him.”

“You can talk while he hangs.”

“Thanks.”

The newest Batgirl and Robin stared at him as he hung, blood rushing to his head. Eddie tried to focus on either of them – but wasn't quite able to.

“Can you two get to the point please? Before the inevitable black out?”

“Why are you looking for your daughter?” Batgirl asked.

“Because she's my daughter?”

“You never cared about family before now.” That voice sounded so strangely familiar, but he couldn't place it while he was swinging from a tie-line a story up. Whoever she was, she certainly sounded irritated with him. Like this was somehow personal. “What's she got that you want?”

“For the love of God-- honestly, you don't think being in a coma for a year and a half, sanity, and it being less than two weeks to Christmas might have something to do with it!?”

“No.” That was the new Robin.

“Shut it, bird brain! Grown ups are talking. You wear the Bat? I'll talk to you.” He tried to focus on Batgirl, but Robin sent him spinning for his big mouth. Dizziness nearly shook his last meal loose, but he swallowed hard and pushed onward. “Look, honestly! No nefarious plots. I just-- want to see my daughter for Christmas. Reformed rogue's honor. Now cut me down.” Eddie risked a glance down. “Over trash bags, not concrete, please.”

“You're... honestly just Miracle on 34th Streeting it here?” Batgirl spoke again. “All you want for Christmas is your little girl?”

“Don't make it sound so sappy!”

There was silence for a moment, and then he hung in the air only for the brief second it took before gravity reasserted itself. He hit the open dumpster, groaning as all the breath rushed out of his lungs on impact-- and again, when the next breath filled them with the scent of days old trash. This was the cue to limp home, he decided, and once he had dragged himself free of the trash, he staggered home for a hot shower and to drop his aching body into bed.

The next two nights, he constantly looked over his shoulders as he went about his work. He wasn't turning up much, though-- and as the nights got colder, it seemed less and less likely he'd find her before the new year. His eagerness began to wither into discouragement.

On the twenty-first, he woke to a courier ringing his bell-- he signed for his package, and then sat down and opened it. It had only three items; copy of The Miracle on 34th Street, a CD-Rom, and a note. Scrawled in purple pen was Happy Holidays, Detective Nygma! A tiny bat had been drawn to the side, and a PS You're still a jerk had been added at the side.

He popped the disc into his computer, scanned it to make sure it didn't have any bat-surprises, and then scanned it twice more just to be safe. When nothing came up, he began to open up files.

There was Ellen; hair dyed brown, but still Ellen all the same. Notes on addresses and contact – her house, her phone number, the diner she was waiting tables with in Atlantic City. Notes on current contacts – Duela Dent was listed as 'MIA', and the rest of her criminal contacts seemed to be past. Had she followed his example and turned over a new leaf when he had?

“Still trying to prove you're my girl, hmm?” he asked her image, but there was no answer forthcoming. He didn't care; he just knew he had to get to her. He made arrangements for travel, shot off an email to Ozzie, and headed north. He was no stranger to Atlantic City – it was rife with crime and an easy place to recruit kneecappers and thugs from down to Gotham. Eddie was a known quantity at the gambling tables, too — to the point he was banned from most of them. He wasn't going to ask how she ended up there, but he was certainly going to make sure she didn't have to stay there if she didn't want to.

It was just over an hour's drive to Atlantic City from Gotham, and Eddie tried to figure out what he'd say to her once he got there. It kept him busy for the better part of an hour. By the time he was pulling up to the diner, it was at the tail end of the lunch rush, and seats were clearing up. It was a quaint, kitschy sort of place-- Atlantic City mobster memorabilia on the walls. Harvey would have burned it to the ground, but for Ellen, maybe it was... a reminder of home.

He got himself a seat at the counter, and turned his coffee cup over for a fill up. A short brunette quickly swept by, pouring coffee into his cup and putting a menu on the table. Her hair was shorter now, tied back in a ponytail to attempt to contain her curls. He wondered if she recognised him – the Lazarus Pit had rolled his biological clock back almost a decade, but that had been five years ago. He'd picked up scars since then; Hush, Poison Ivy-- they'd all left marks on his skin.

“Got any specials?” he asked, and that got her to look up sharply. She fixed him with a look, and then her eyes widened.

“I got a pot full of hot coffee for your face if you don't get out of here, old man,” she said, voice dipping into a dangerous, low tone. Eddie put his hands up very quickly, and shook his head.

“I'm-- I'm just wanted to--”

“What, waltz into my life and wish me a Merry Christmas?”

“Well, I'm sure there's a nicer way to put it than that....”

Her brows furrowed, a line running through them a she watched him, tried to gauge his sincerity.

“Straight answer: Why are you here?”

“Looking for you. And I'm famished after a long drive.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn't eat much before I left.”

“The other thing, asshole.”

Eddie smiled, and spread his hands. Everything he'd rehearsed was fleeing him now; it was all after school special crap, fake and lacking.

“Because I was a crap father, from a long line of crap fathers, and maybe I-- could try not to be.”

“Little late for that, don't you think? I'm twenty-one. Kind of hate to play house when I'm not in pigtails, any more.” She stalked off then, and came back with a slice of pecan pie. She set it down with a fork and said, “I'm off in forty-five minutes. Eat your pie and I'll talk to you after.”

And then she walked away. A pie wasn't lunch, but he wasn't about to look gift slice in the pan, was he? He ate and watched her wrap up her tables, pick up her tips and clear. Body language spoke of tension, defensiveness. She hadn't given up her training – she still moved like an athlete. He couldn't see an ounce of him in her, at the end of the day, though. She'd not gotten much from him at all.

Nothing but trouble.

He finished his pie, laid down his payment in cash, with a generous tip, and went outside to wait. A moment later, he heard a sharp whistle from behind the dinner, and he went around back. Ellen was waiting for him, a thin jacket on and her apron thrown over one shoulder.

“So, you got five minutes, talk.”

“That's not a lot of time.”

“But yet I know you can fill it up if you try.”

“I can, I'm sure-- but I just-- this isn't a riddle, Ellen. This is an answer. 'What does Edward Nygma regret.'” She flinched then, and he put up his hands. “Hear me out. The answer is not 'being a father', because-- I wasn't one. I was a glorified sperm donor. That's all. I was never your father. I don't know that I can be. But – I thought-- maybe now that there's no Riddler...”

“That what, I'll want to know the 'real man'?” Ellen rolled her eyes. She was pacing now, hands gesturing as she got more and more wound up with each word. “You know what? I wanted to know the real man. Even when you were sick and couldn't go a damn day without twisting some riddle on it's ear, I wanted to know you! I didn't care if you were-- bad, I just-- I just wanted you around! So why weren't you?”

“I thought it was best--”

“For who?! You and your glorious criminal empire of failure?”

“For you, dammit! I knew exactly what it was like to live in a house where one of your parents couldn't stand to look at you and the other couldn't even muster a damn to give about your existence at all beyond that you took up her time!” Now it was Ellen's turn to flinch. “Or did your precious scrapbook not have those parts where my mother walked out on us when I was eight and my father never forgave me for it? They edit that out between the heists and the riddles?”

“So you thought you'd do the same thing she did?”

“No! I thought I'd not start to begin with. Not-- screw you up by hanging around and resenting you! But – I didn't. Even when I was funnelling money to your mother, I didn't... resent you. I just knew I wasn't any good for you.”

“And now you are?”

“Now's... different. Now, I'm not a-- I'm not that person any more. If I hadn't been in a damn coma when you started with the Titans, maybe-- it wouldn't have taken so long but... I was, and now, here I am. My priorities are different.”

“So I'm a priority now. Now, right after I just turned twenty-one.”

“I turn forty in a month. Yes, now.”

“You look pretty good for forty, old man.”

“That wasn't what you said the last time, kid.”

She jerked her chin in the general direction of his head.

“So the coma, it reset your brain? Suddenly everything works right. And now you care. Now you want to catch up and do all that father-daughter shit?”

“No,” he said as gently as he could. “No, not all that—no. I just-- want a chance to know you. That's-- all. The rest-- I don't delude myself into the idea that we're going to be a father-daughter team, or that we have an iota of anything in common, but... there's really no need for us to be alone in the world.”

Ellen dropped her gaze, head hanging. She put her hands on her hips, chewed her bottom lip, and then said, “What the hell do you expect me to do.”

“You want to have have Christmas alone, or-- you can come home to Gotham for a bit and-- we can figure things out?”

“I can't just-- leave my job.”

“Can't you?”

“You gonna set me up, Daddy Warbucks?”

“I could help. Unless you like two bit diners.”

“Isn't so bad. Work's honest, nobody looks too closely at you, or questions your tattoos.”

“I'm not going to ask about tattoos. Already had my regrettable body modifications during a-- mid-life crisis, we'll say,” Edward said, palming his face. “Look. I'm going to give you some addresses, and an invitation to a party, and some time to think. If you decide you don't want to be on your own this Christmas, give me a call. If you do, then you do, and I won't try and bother you again. Is that-- can that be how we part?”

Ellen shrugged, non-committal-- how the tables had turned. He supposed he deserved it. She had craved his attention and love for years, and now he wanted hers. Who wouldn't leverage it, after being hurt so?

He pulled one of his cards out, and the invitation to Oswald's party, and she pocketed both without looking at them.

“If I don't see you, have a merry Christmas,” he said. She nodded, mutely, and gave a little wave, watching to make sure he left. He got into the car, drove to a fast food joint to grab what passed for lunch, and then headed back to Gotham less than satisfied. He wasn't sure what he really expected. What would he do, if his mother turned up after nearly thirty years and wanted to reconnect with him? What would she even say? 'Sorry I said I regretted not getting that abortion'? Sure, he hadn't been quite so-- obviously unpleasant, but he'd been, at the very least, absentee from her life.

The door was open now, though, and it'd be her choice to walk through... or not. He could only live with what she chose. She was an adult now, she was allowed. It just didn't make him happy. He had so few successes in his criminal career, and while they were more frequent in his reformation, he still knew there were things he could lose. Important things. You never knew how good a thing was until it was abruptly out of reach.

So Eddie came home alone, showered, and closed up his case. He emailed Ozzie the details of what he'd found and their discussion. He got back an offer of drinks and a note that Lila would be glad to see him again if he liked, and that she and the girls spoke fondly of him... He took a rain check. Maybe around New Years, if she was free. It seemed the more appropriate time for a good, thorough debauching.

In the mean time, he let the days pass quietly an uneventfully. Cases were thin before Christmas, and he had time to kill. He went through several books of cross words, beat a few video games, and then sent a letter to Cat, hoping that knowing Ellen was alright would brighten her holiday season some.

It was the twenty-fourth, six o'clock, when the door bell rang, exactly when Eddie expected it to. He'd donned his suit and cap, tugged on his gloves, heading downstairs with his mask in his pocket. He hadn't expected to see Ozzie's limo, though-- the little man rarely came out to get him personally. But it was a holiday, and thus, perhaps some pre-partying was in order. A nameless thug (there were so many; even more after that Intergang business) stepped out to usher him into the vehicle.

“Eddie, boy, get in! I'm afraid I've stolen your date, but I'm sure you can woo her away if you try. You are charming when you wish to be,” Ozzie said, as he scooted over for the man to get in; he glimpsed a pair of sparkling green heels before his eyes jumped past the athletic legs to Ellie sitting there in a sleek black dress, accented with green.“I believe you've met her, though! Miss--”

“Ellen Nygma,” she said. “Hello, Daddy-o. Sit down and shut your mouth, would you?”

“Clever little thing you've spawned, Eddie,” Ozzie said, reaching out out to help steady him before he fell into his seat. “She came by the club, sidled right up to one of my boys and said , 'You tell the Penguin, you tell him Ellie Nygma is here.' Next thing I know, I've hired her to manage my weekday waitstaff and given her a month's advance.”

“Did she now?” Eddie said, watching Ellie try not to grin ear from ear. She was flushed with pleasure now, at Ozzie's effusive praise. “And then she wheedled her way into your good graces, hmm?”

“Well, she already did have an invitation to my holiday ball. How can I say no to a charming and beautiful young woman? Good thing you brought your cane, Eddie. You'll be beating the young men off her with a stick, alright.”

“Hey, I'm old enough to date.”

“Are you thirty?” Eddie asked.

“No!” Ellie's denial came out with a laugh.

“Then you're not old enough to date.”

“Sorry, old man – you missed the bus on making those rules,” she said, though it wasn't meant unkindly. “We'll see if you get a dance or two, though. Is it that kind of party, right?”

“Yes, it is, child, yes it is,” Ozzie told her. “Now, before we get to there--” he pulled champagne from it's chiller in the limo's bar, and passed it to Eddie. “Pop the cork, pour us some, and a toast for the holidays, hmm?”

Eddie did as he was told, ignoring that his hands shook; with nerves or sudden joy, he couldn't say which. Now both Nygmas in the limo had matching grins-- a cork popped and some bubbles later, they lifted their glasses.

“To the holidays and the gifts they bring,” Eddie said.

“To family,” Ozzie said, lifting his glass. “By blood or by choice, or even by both.”

“To new starts with familiar faces,” Ellie said.

“Cheers!” the three chorused, and clinked their glasses as the limo sped into the night. The party was off to a fantastic start. Eddie couldn't wait to see how things would change in the coming year.


End file.
